Plank
Usually a topographic surname for someone who lived by a plank-bridge, boardwalk, or crossing over water or boggy ground.
The #5,331 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 47,252 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is generally explained as a topographic name meaning “dweller by the plank,” referring to a wooden plank or board laid across a stream, marsh, or bog. The word is ultimately linked to Old French forms such as planche/planque and Latin planca, meaning a board or plank. Some 19th-century writers also connected it with place-names like Les Planques in northern France.
History
Medieval records show forms such as de la Plank, suggesting an early English use as a place-based identifier. Later surname dictionaries note that it may also be confused with similar names like Plain or Planche, and some examples may reflect French or Norman influence. The name is relatively uncommon in modern English-speaking countries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Bardsley remarked that surnames from a single landmark were common enough to include names based on trees, and Plank fits that same pattern of a distinctive local feature becoming a surname.
From the historical record
“Confused with Plain, q.v. PLANK (A.-Fr.-Lat.) i Dweller at the Plank, i.e. over a watercourse or bog [N.Fr. planque (Fr. planche), Lat. planca'] Matilda de la Plank. — Cal. Geneal. There is a place called Les Planques in the Pas-de-Calais Dept.”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)